Symposium: One Islam?
By Jamie Glazov

Spencer: Jamie, there is absolutely no doubt that in many areas of the Islamic world, for many reasons a cultural Islam has evolved that deemphasizes the militancy of the Qur’an and Muhammad’s example, and often contains significant syncretistic elements. This is true in varying ways in West Africa, Central Asia, and Southeast Asia. However, Thomas Haidon is correct when he notes that “these pluralistic Islamic practices, I believe, are at risk,” and that there is a movement fostering the “total Arabisation of Islam in Indonesia” and elsewhere. This will involve, as Haidon says, “tolerant cultural practices” being “subsumed by harsher practices.”

Haidon is also unfortunately correct that “more moderate models of Islam may be susceptible and vulnerable to more conservative models” – and this is part of the Arabization phenomenon. This is because the proponents of Arabization and radicalization present themselves as the exponents of a “true” and “pure” Islam, purged of the cultural syncretism that, because it lacks foundation in the Qur’an and the Sunnah, they are able to portray as illegitimate. For instance, in his delightful book The Caliph’s House, Tahir Shah recounts how Wahhabi recruiters from Saudi Arabia set up a trailer in a shantytown in Casablanca, from which they endeavored to recruit the locals for the jihad.